Syria: Look beyond US imperialism’s hype

By Gloria La Riva

Dec 16, 2016

Aleppo December 15, buses evacuating civilians

The U.S. and its allies have engaged in permanent war in the Middle East to reshape and dominate it completely, not just since 2001, nor even since 1991, but long before. Why would anyone believe it is any different with Syria?

Just to name a few facts and dates:

The 1953 CIA coup against Mossadegh, and subsequent re-privatization of Iran’s oil, until the Iranian revolution of 1979 and the oil control back in Iran’s hands (No wonder it is now under renewed attack and sanctions).

The U.S. provided crucial funding, arms and political support to Israel in its 1967 and 1982 wars of conquest.

And in one of the most cynical actions of U.S. imperialism, its 1980-88 direct role in fueling, arming, giving intelligence to both countries in the Iraq-Iran war, seeking to destroy or weaken both.

With 1990 and Iraq’s intervention in Kuwait came the perfect pretext for all-out U.S. direct war, a conflict that the U.S. had no right to intervene in, but did, and set about to completely destroy Iraq’s civilian infrastructure with its 43-day bombing war, following up with the murder of over 1,000,000 Iraqi people through war, genocidal blockade (the so-called “sanctions”) of 13 years, and then more war and occupation.

In all these aforementioned years we have seen the proliferation of U.S. military bases all over Middle East, including in Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, and Pakistan and Afghanistan in the larger region.

And Palestine! The Palestinian people have been denied the most elemental human rights for decades. The U.S. gives full-blown support for Israel, one of the most dangerous, terrorist states in the world. Under Obama, an additional $38 billion is granted to apartheid Israel, which itself serves as a giant base and extension of U.S. military power.

With the so-called Arab Spring, U.S. seized the opportune moment — after years of sanctioning and disarming Libya, to then destroy its state with U.S./NATO bombing. The flourishing of reactionary, Salafist terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda, Al Nusra and ISIS is a direct outgrowth of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the NATO war in Libya and the intervention by the West and its allies in Syria.

Those organizations had no presence in Iraq, Libya or Syria before the U.S.-led wars against those countries.

But wait, the U.S. is not finished. Since at least 2011, Syria has been in the crosshairs of the U.S. and its allies. However, the U.S. plans for complete domination of the region have hit a stumbling block. After these five years of horrific war largely fueled by the arming of the terrorist organizations, there is finally a decisive turnaround with the Syrian army’s recovery of the strategic city of Aleppo.

The prospect of a U.S. defeat in Syria has the New York Times, Washington Post and every other Pentagon mouthpiece howling bloody murder, while hiding the undeniable role of the trillion-dollar Pentagon War Machine in instigating genocide all these many years of permanent war.

There are no media tears shed over the suffering of the Yemeni people by the relentless Saudi/U.S. war, no tears for Palestine, only more billions for Israel and bombs for Saudi Arabia, no tears for the people of Mosul who are suffering from U.S. bombing.

The extremely reactionary nature of the so-called “rebels” is conveniently hidden or ignored, as is the terror they have sowed in areas they occupy.

The Syrian government has every right to seek Russia’s aid, the first chance for a settlement in the war.

Now, if one were to review all the years of U.S. media accounts regarding these wars, the image conveyed is that the U.S. is a great savior in all the conflicts, or at least the only force that must bring its troops and bombs to settle the crisis.

We were supposed to believe in the “Weapons of Mass Destruction” in Iraq, the “Humanitarian Crisis” in Yugoslavia, the false claim that either Iraq or Afghanistan was responsible for 9/11, the “babies thrown out of incubators by Iraqi troops in 1991,” ad nauseam.

Before war is palatable to the people, it must be preceded and then accompanied by a heavy dose of lies and outrageous accusations against the targeted country. Social media has become a useful weapon in the arsenal of the Pentagon propaganda war machine. How are individuals actually able to send Tweets and video messages from war-torn Syria, where electricity is not even available, and somehow, only one side is able to communicate? It could very well be that they are generated elsewhere.

For the Party for Socialism and Liberation, self-determination and anti-imperialism are the watchwords. We fully back Syria’s right to liberate its country and people from the U.S.-backed terrorists and Washington’s schemes. Despite the five years of massive loss of lives and the monstrous destruction, we hope for the war’s end and Syria’s recovery.

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